


Flame of Copper

by shameless_rogue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (maybe not all of them), (that would have made the fic even longer), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, And feels, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Childhood Memories, Feels, M/M, Mild Smut, Slow Burn, and a bit of Stucky but it focuses mainly on Thor and Loki, but i ended up adding all the marvel couples i could think of, i mean it's a Thorki fic, okay this is basically a college au, with angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:25:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shameless_rogue/pseuds/shameless_rogue
Summary: "He watches Thor. He watches Thor fall for him. He watches him fall."Thor's new roommate enjoys lighting candles with emerald flames, listening to stories about Thor's past, and being called Mischief.





	Flame of Copper

The autumn breeze has turned the air freezing cold, the nicotine from the cigarette smoke has painted the walls a pale yellow, and he has already finished folding his clothes into one half of the small wardrobe by the time the door opens. It’s a small room, too small to seem comfortable, and the two beds standing pushed against the walls on each side of it aren’t precisely helping with that. The door is between the beds, right next to the wardrobe; the window on the wall opposite it, wide open so the fresh air gets in faster. This one thing is large, at least. Not very pretty with its white plastic frame and thin brown curtains, but large nonetheless, large enough for him to see thousands and thousands of buildings right under his feet whenever he glances out of it. Large enough for anyone down on the street to look up for a second and catch sight of his bare ass if he forgets about himself and decides to get undressed without hiding behind the curtains first. He'll have to keep that in mind. 

The door opens and a man bursts inside, his steps echoing in the tiny room as he enters. He tries to close the door behind himself but the wind gains some strength right in that moment and it clashes against the wall and the wardrobe and both men, and the door, too, tearing it out of the man’s hand and slapping it into its frame loudly, with enough force to make the thin wood tremble. 

The man drops the two bags he’s been holding in his free hand and looks around the room. 

“Whoa,” he says, “that's some nice fresh air, huh?” He pounds to the bed on the right where his future roommate is standing, and holds out a hand to grab his. “Thor Odinson, hi.” 

“Hi,” he answers and lets his hand be shaken. His fingers look pale and fragile in Thor’s massive fist, almost like they’re going to break if he squeezes them just a bit too hard. Thor seems to notice that, too, because he lets him go quickly and with an apologetic smile. 

“I’m sorry, man, didn’t mean to break you,” he says. “What’s your name?” 

“Laufeyson.” 

Thor lifts an eyebrow when he hears it. 

“Cool,” he nods. “So you've got a first name too or what?” 

“Oh,” he laughs softly, “call me Mischief.” 

Thor lifts his other eyebrow as well. Apparently, he’s very proud of his skills concerning facial expressions. 

“That doesn’t sound like a proper name,” he says and Mischief laughs again, his breath escaping his throat in a harsh, ice cold chuckle. 

“Let's just say it’s a nickname,” he explains. “I’m not overly fond of my—what was the way you put it? _Proper_ fist name.” 

“No, that’s totally cool, I get it,” Thor is quick to say. “I mean, mine is from Scandinavian folklore. Not the best when you don’t feel like showing off that you’re a foreigner, if you know what I mean.” 

Mischief looks him up and down, focusing on every bit of his bright blue eyes and long blonde hair and rippling arm muscles and unusual height, lazily, one by one, analyzing them, memorizing them. 

“I don’t think I know what you mean,” he answers after a while, still letting his gaze wander over Thor. It’s like what he has is actual strength, not just thick muscles full of thin air. His shoulders are broad, his hips narrow. His blonde locks in a loose warrior braid, resting somewhere behind his neck. “But you sure do look like a Scandinavian fighter. What was your name again? Thor? The protector of mankind? The god of thunder?” 

“Yeah,” Thor shrugs. “I bet that Thor wouldn’t let himself be put in a new dorm, away from his friends.” 

Now it's Mischief's turn to lift an eyebrow. 

“Is that how you got here? I thought you were a freshman, too.” 

“Hell no,” Thor shakes his head, snorting. It sounds thick and full and resonant, like he was able to crash a wall with only his laughter if he felt like it. “This is the second year I'm going to spend rotting here with those assholes.” 

“I thought you were telling me about your friends just a moment ago.” 

“I still am,” Thor assures him and turns to get his bags. “They’re my friends and the nicest assholes you'll ever find around the campus. I don’t like assholes who aren’t nice. They don’t like me, either.” 

The first bag he grabs is a large sports bag with its zippers open and an unbelievable amount of shirts and books and CDs sticking out of it. The CDs are blank, only a few of them have a band name or a title scribbled on their metallic surface in thick black capitals. Downloaded, probably. The bag that remains on the floor is smaller but not much tidier. It’s a dark blue backpack, or that’s what it must be under the thick layers of badges and dirt that covers most of it. Thor doesn’t touch that one, he leaves it in the middle of the room like that’s where he's going to keep it. 

“So like ten minutes ago, Fury comes in,” he goes on explaining while he pours everything from his bag onto the bed on the left. “And he says, hey, we've got a new kid for this room, let him move in. Odinson, free your bed, you’re going somewhere else. And he also told Bucky to wash off his makeup. Maybe you should wash off yours too before he sees it. He's got some sort of problem with that. Says it makes you look like a faggot.” 

Mischief lets out a soft chuckle, lifting a hand to brush his hair out of his face, revealing more of the eyeliner he's wearing. 

“Well, I don’t know about this Bucky of yours, but that’s kind of the point here,” he says. Thor looks up at him, at the neat curve of his liner, at the way he's tilting his head to the side, at the slender hand resting on his hipbone, and bursts out laughing. 

“You’re totally right,” he says, nodding eagerly. “You sure will love Bucky. He’s real witty too. Always has a comeback for Fury. Last time he told him that makeup made him look gay, he said he thought sleeping with guys did.” 

“Oh?” 

“The best part is that Fury doesn’t even know he literally sleeps with his boyfriend every night,” Thor goes on, getting more and more into his own story, teeth shining in a wide grin, eyes burning with enthusiasm. “They’re roommates! But that’s a secret, they'd be separated if anyone knew. And they don’t actually fuck in the room when we're there, or they're very quiet, I don’t know.” 

Mischief lets out a short laugh and it actually sounds interested and amused, it makes Thor grin even wider. 

“Now that’s a real hell of a story,” he nods. Thor throws his bag on the floor, kicking it under his bed without even looking, and reaches wrist-deep into his pile of clothes. 

“It is,” he agrees cheerfully. “I'll introduce you to them when I'm finished here, if you want.” 

For a moment, Mischief remains silent. Then he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as he speaks, turning his words into something akin to a sigh. 

“Sure, that would be awesome.” 

Thor doesn’t seem to notice the lack of enthusiasm in his voice. He's busy searching through his stuff. His hands are sinking into the pile then appearing again, looking for something hidden from Mischief's attentive eyes. Then he grabs an object, finally; the movement is visible even under the countless layers of clothes and books and stolen CDs, because the pile rises higher just above his fist. He punches into the air with his free hand and lets out a victorious whistle. 

“Here it is!” he exclaims and pulls his hand free. He’s holding what looks like a framed picture. Mischief inches closer, peering over Thor's shoulder as he places it on the window sill, closing the window first so it doesn’t fall out. It’s a photo, the slightly blurred portrait of a young woman. She's got golden brown hair, a pointed jaw and a gleaming smile, and she’s holding a paper coffee cup in her gloved hands. It’s winter in the picture. And it’s a cozy little house in the background, its roof covered in snow and its kitchen full of delicate heat, the smell of hot cocoa and cinnamon cookies and mulled wine wriggling out through its door. Mischief can almost feel it if he stares hard enough. 

He straightens up and clears his throat. 

“Girlfriend?” he asks, pointing his index finger at the picture, keeping his tone neutral. Thor shakes his head, then nods, then shakes his head again. 

“Ex-girlfriend,” he says, eyes still focused on the picture. “We broke up a few months ago. It turned out that she was moving to Europe to study—whatever she's studying now. It’s too scientific for me. So are long distance relationships.” 

“Oh.” Mischief clears his throat again. He lifts his hand to place it on Thor’s shoulder but thinks better of it and stops the movement halfway, his hand lingering between the two of them with an uncertainty Thor is definitely better off without witnessing. “Well, I'm sorry.” 

“So am I.” Thor turns around to stand up and Mischief steps back immediately, with a movement so smooth it makes Thor stare at him for a second. But it’s only for that one second because then he's tramping past Mischief, grabbing his backpack and throwing it on one shoulder, his braid flying up in the air and landing between his shoulder blades with a heavy thump when he moves his head to free his hair from under the blue straps. He’s already on his way to the door when he glances back at Mischief over his shoulder. “What, you’re not coming?” 

Mischief closes the curtains so they hide the picture before following him. 

* 

The corridors are narrow and the staircases slippery, and the entire building is bathing in the sick white light of the neon tubes running along the long corridors, fixed to the ceiling yet looking like they’re just about to fall on their heads. On each end of each floor, there is one single toilet, and on every second floor, an entire bathroom with about twenty showers and not much more sinks. When they get to the bathroom door on the right wall of their corridor, Thor opens it and steps inside, gesturing for Mischief to follow him. 

“That’s it,” he says, drawing a wide semi-circle with his arm in the air, like he’s trying to show Mischief every single stained shower curtain and limescale-covered tap and misty tile one by one. “It’s not big, you see, and it’s supposed to serve two floors. That’s like ten rooms with two beds, and eight rooms with six. Two times.” He stops and his gaze fades out, like he’s concentrating on something, probably calculating the number of people he’s just mentioned, and when he speaks again, his nose and forehead are wrinkled into a strict scowl. “That’s an awful lot of guys,” he claims, and Mischief can’t help but chuckle at him, hiding his smile behind his hand. 

“I’m sure it is,” he agrees. “I guess I'll just do my business early in the morning when nobody's up.” 

“That’s what most people do,” Thor says. “I'd say you should sleep as long as you can and have your shower very late, right before you have to leave for class. That’s what I do, and it works alright.” 

“Good, then,” Mischief answers with a shrug. He steps out of the bathroom and Thor is quick to follow, the door closing behind them with a long creak and a soft thud. 

The dorm room where Thor used to live is three floors down from where they're going to live now. 

“It kinda sucks because we don’t have a shower on this floor,” Thor explains, “but it’s the first room here so it’s right next to the stairs. So we could get to the bathroom faster than most guys, it’s just that you had to climb some stairs on your way. I mean, the others still have to.” 

A few more steps down the staircase and they're there, standing in front of a door that looks the exact same as all the other doors on all the other floors, and yet makes the corners of Thor’s lips curl upwards in a hardly noticeable smile. 

“So,” he says, wrapping his fingers around the doorknob and pushing the door inwards, “these are the assholes I told you about.” 

Mischief has to lean forward over Thor’s shoulder to actually see those assholes. There’s seven of them in the room, lying on the ground or on one of the three bunk beds, or sitting on the window sill, blowing cigarette smoke out of the room so the smell doesn’t give them away. 

“Look who's back!” one of them exclaims, lifting himself up on an elbow, making the girl he's been cuddling with groan lazily. “It’s the big guy. Good to see you, bro. How's your new room? Look at this kid we've got here, he’s very cute. I've actually met him before, at an exhibition about subatomic particles. It wasn’t all that informative but we had a real cool conversation, and he’s only eighteen, can you believe that? He can’t even drink legally.” 

“Shut it, Tony.” It’s a girl who speaks, one of the two people sitting in the window. She’s leaning against its frame with her legs crossed, both hanging out of the room and into the cold air surrounding the building. Her hair is red and curly, the base of the cigarette she’s holding between her full lips tinted a deep shade of scarlet by her lipstick. Her nails are black and so are her leather jeans. And so are the tiny reindeers on her fluffy, grey, knitted cardigan. As she speaks, she arches her back so she can turn towards the others, her gaze fixed on Mischief, a thick cloud of smoke floating from between her lips. She blows it right into the room and no one says a word. “Who did you bring, big guy?” 

“You mean me?” Mischief steps out from where he’s been hiding behind Thor’s broad back. “Call me Mischief.” 

They all glare at him in stunned silence, and he lets them. Even the red-haired girl takes the cigarette from her mouth so she doesn’t have to focus on keeping it in balance with her lips. Her gaze, everyone's gaze, is moving up and down him, exploring his looks, taking in his appearance. He knows what they’re staring at. It’s his piercings, the obsidian rings in his right auricle and the golden snake in his left earlobe. The shining, emerald green stone under his lower lip, on the left side. The thin, flexible, golden necklace that disappears under his loose shirt, buttoned down to show his chest, the logo of an underground band—a wolf cub with a human heart between its teeth—embroidered into its collar. The skinny jeans hanging from his sharp hipbones; the leather boots reaching up over his ankles. The black nail polish. The neatly winged eyeliner. The rings covering his fingers, at least one on every last one of them, except the empty ring finger of his left hand. The long, black hair framing his high cheekbones. The pale skin. The thin lips. The eyes, emerald like the piercing in his lower lip. The shining white teeth in his refined smile. 

“So you’re a mischievous guy, huh?” someone finally speaks. Mischief nods. 

“That’s a way of putting it, yes.” 

“Cool. I'm Bucky. Barnes.” The guy jumps down from the top of the bunk bed he’s sharing with someone who’s actually willing to make his bed in the morning, and, apparently, is the only person in the room to do so. Mischief spares an approving glance for the neatly folded bedsheets on the bottom part of the bunk, then shakes the guy's hand. 

“I'm really glad to meet you, Bucky,” he says. 

“Yeah, me too. Do you have a last name or something?” Bucky asks, pulling his hand back only to use it to rub the thin skin under his eye. He really is wearing some eyeliner. From the way it's smudged literally everywhere but on his actual eyelids, it must be really soft pencil liner. Or the remains of last week’s look. 

“Sure,” Thor answers instead of Mischief. “It’s Laufeyson. He didn’t tell me his first name but I of all people should respect that.” 

“I never understood why you don’t find the name of the god of thunder appealing enough,” the guy with the girlfriend says, and at the same time, someone else speaks from somewhere above their heads. 

“Hi, I'm Clint Barton,” he says, waving a hand. “Nice to meet you, pal.” 

There are three wardrobes in the room and Clint Barton is lying on the top of one of them, his body trapped in the narrow gap between wardrobe and ceiling. Mischief squints up at him. 

“Oh, hey,” he says and waves back. “What on Earth are you doing up there, if I may ask?” 

“He likes keeping an eye on everything that happens around him,” the girlfriend guy says, then corrects himself. “Under him. I'm the infamous Tony Stark, by the way, and I'm pretty sure I've heard your name before.” 

“Mischief _is_ a word, you know,” Bucky helps while climbing back onto his bed, and Tony rolls his eyes at him. 

“Not that one, jerk. The Laufeyson one.” 

“Yes, I think I've heard it too,” the girl in the window adds. She’s begun to smoke her cigarette again, and now she’s puffing soft clouds out of her mouth with every word she says. “I'm not sure though, where.” 

“Well,” Mischief starts, but is interrupted immediately by a victorious shout. 

“Here!” Tony gestures towards him with his smartphone. “It’s his father, he’s got a company that’s one of the most serious rivals of my dad's. It’s pretty sad that I had to google that, don’t you think? I didn’t know he had a son.” 

“Had,” the girl with the cigarette echoes, squinting at Mischief from between long eyelashes. “Only had, right? I heard he died a few weeks ago.” 

“Good God, Nat!” a guy exclaims. He’s been lying next to Bucky but he sits up now, his back straight, his hair thoroughly combed, his shirt white and short-sleeved, and there are tiny pink flamingos on it. “I'm so sorry, Mischief. But it’s very nice to meet you. Are you Thor’s new roommate?” 

“Exactly. And you are?” 

“Steve Rogers, you can call me Steve. It’s good to see that Thor's going to have such good company this year.” 

“Yeah, sure, but _Mischief_ _?_ Really?” Bucky interrupts him. Tony snorts loudly. 

“Says the guy who actually has Buchanan for a first name.” 

“Says the guy who's never in his life called me anything but Barnes,” Bucky snaps back. Mischief hides his chuckle behind his long fingers but Thor’s standing close enough to him to hear it, and turns to him with a bright smile. 

“Told you you'd love them,” he says, his grin so wide that his eyes almost disappear behind his eyelids. It’s pride that’s radiating from his entire being; pride and happiness, and, most likely, affection. Mischief rolls his eyes but nods anyway. 

“Yes,” he says, quietly so no one else can hear it. “I most definitely will.” 

* 

The red-haired girl's name is Natasha. She refuses to share her last name with Mischief at first, arguing that she doesn’t know half of his name either, but then Bucky says she’s a bit paranoid and called Romanov, by the way, and she allows Mischief to plant a kiss in the air just above the back of her hand. Tony's girlfriend is called Pepper and she seems like a real sweetheart, sitting there with her spiced coffee, leaning over the mug, inhaling the hot scent, talking almost never, except when she has a chance to roast her boyfriend so badly that everyone at their table, and sometimes even a couple of strangers two tables away, burst out laughing. The kid's name is Peter. From what Tony tells them about him, he’s got a pretty annoying ex-boyfriend and a real bad crush on some girl from his year, but he seems too awkward with the situation to react to what’s being told about him. He’s fidgeting around nervously instead, never sharing anything about himself, trying to joke about movies and cartoons and people none of the others know. And then there’s some guy called Bruce. All Mischief gets to know about him is that he’s really into wearing purple shirts and reading books for his classes with titles so long and so full of Latin-like words nobody asks him to explain what they’re about. Tony says he would but he’s already read them so there would be no point in asking, and Bruce laughs into his face right before they get into a heated debate about something on a molecular level. 

“So,” Pepper leans forward, fingers laced together, forearms flat on the table. “What are you here for, Mischief?” She says the name with a hint of sarcasm but her gentle smile softens the tune, it makes it friendly and joking, like she finds the name amusing but not a source of amusement. He clears his throat. 

“I’m not entirely sure yet,” he answers, one eyebrow slightly raised, lips forming a tiny, apologetic, admitting smile. “It’s this investigating thing that interests me, but who knows, I might just change schools after a week. What are you guys doing here anyway?” 

“Those two,” she points to Tony and Bruce, still throwing biophysical terms and a bunch of swearwords at each other, even though the difference between the two isn't exactly easy to tell, “are doing their third semester in advanced physics. Steve and I are studying something like communication and human behavior. Everyone else is doing that investigation stuff you mentioned.” 

“You are?” Mischief glances to the side, looking at Thor quickly, more in surprise than in disbelief to anyone's eyes. “You too?” 

“Yeah,” Thor nods. “Most of it is pretty hard but I like it.” 

“That’s because he can brag about his workout routine whenever we do anything physical,” Bucky murmurs, and Thor slides down on the bench so he can reach him with his toes, trying to kick his leg jokingly and earning a loud hiss from Steve instead. 

“Dear God,” he curses with his teeth gritted together, face wrinkled into a pained grimace. “Thor, what the hell are you doing?” 

Thor stares at him in pure shock, his eyes wide open, his lips slightly parted. He looks confused and somewhat dumber than he should, but adorable as well. Puppy-like. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kick you,” he says. “I was going to kick Barnes so he stops talking shit about my workout.” 

“It’s fine,” Steve shrugs, his grimace slowly fading away; and Bucky leans into his side to put an arm around his shoulder. 

“Just pass it on, doll,” he advises, and places a quick kiss on his cheek. “Kick me so Thor doesn’t have to.” 

“Why do I have this feeling that you’re less scared of my kick than his?” Steve pouts, but his voice is hardly audible when Tony starts laughing. 

“Doll,” he repeats, still grinning. “Come on, Barnes, could you be any gayer than this?” 

“Literally everyone here is gay,” Steve murmurs. 

“I’m literally the only person here who isn’t.” 

“I'm not,” Bruce tries but no one's really listening, because Bucky's suddenly standing on his feet and pointing to his own chest in a wide gesture, his other hand still holding Steve’s. 

“I’m not gay,” he announces. “Nat says I slept with her.” 

“Barnes, you have a boyfriend.” 

“That’s called bisexuality. Nat says I—” 

And this is when Natasha bursts out laughing, and when she speaks, her voice is hysterically high, just as much in awkwardness as in amusement. 

“That’s because you did!” she exclaims, taking a deep breath only to start laughing again. “He acts like he doesn’t remember, but he totally did. Back in high school,” she explains to Mischief, and her eyes are glowing with tears of laughter, “we went on a trip to Russia for six weeks, which is basically why we both speak the language fluently. And this fucker here—” she glances at Barnes, at his dark grey denim jacket and his pinkish flower crown, “he looked even gayer back then, can you imagine that? So our teachers let us sleep in the same room. And stuff happened.” 

“I don’t remember that,” Bucky says, shaking his head; and then Steve is blushing and Tony is laughing and Natasha is repeating something like “like hell you don't, asshole, don’t even try,” and Mischief relaxes into the back of the bench, closing his eyes, listening to the conversation with a tiny, amused smile. 

The café they’re sitting in is just a few blocks away from the large building of the college, and it has beige walls and wooden tables and, if Tony isn't lying, the best burgers in the entire city; and even in the early afternoon, it’s full of people and food and warmth and noise. It seems like a place Thor’s familiar with, and one that he loves, Mischief can see that even from under his half-closed eyelids. Thor’s smiling, and laughing, and maintaining a serious face when the topic of the conversation forces him to; but there’s something radiating from him the entire time, something warm and golden, something that makes the outlines of his figure ripple with an otherworldly glow. 

Mischief opens his eyes so he doesn’t get caught staring. 

“Oh,” Steve says the moment he notices he's turned his attention back to them, “I must have been boring you, sorry.” He’s been talking about some ex-girlfriend named Peggy and how perfect she was, and weird as it seems, Bucky has been caressing the back of his hand with his thumb the whole time, assuring everyone now and then with absolute honesty that yes, Peggy definitely was the most wonderful person Steve could ever have needed, at that point of his life, at least. 

Mischief shakes his head, smiling. 

“Not at all,” he says. “I’m happy to hear about those who are important to you. That’s always exciting.” 

“That’s cool, thanks.” Steve clears his throat. “But let's not talk about me, my love life is not all that interesting.” He turns to Bucky whose lips are pushed forward in a forced pout. “Sorry, punk. So, tell us about yourself, Mischief. Really, I want to hear it.” 

So he tells them about the past they want to hear; he speaks about a tiny house in a cold little corner of Europe and about a skyscraper that’s right above their heads, one that would be visible even from the small café if they got up and went to the window; and he tells them about a father too rich to care about money and too busy to care for his son; and when he's finished, everyone’s staring at him in silent awe, stunned by a story they wanted to believe in and by the person who allowed them to. 

“You didn’t say a thing about your mother,” Natasha says quietly. She doesn’t seem to have got as emotional over the story as everyone else; her eyebrows are raised like she knows her question is anything but innocent, her fingers are slowly drumming on the table. 

“I never knew her,” he answers, but she doesn’t give up so easily. 

“But your father must have told you something,” she insists. “How they met, what her favorite flower was, when she—” 

“Well,” Mischief interrupts, “he did tell me one thing. How they chose my name. But I'm afraid I won’t be able to tell you that story, because trust me, you don’t want to know that name.” 

Natasha narrows her eyes but all the others are chuckling. 

“You know,” Thor says, “I wish I'd had the brains to keep my name a secret too.” 

“Come on, your name is cool. God of thunder and all,” Tony argues, but Thor shrugs the reasoning off with a lazy twitch of his shoulder. 

“My parents actually met thanks to their names,” he goes on, turning his entire torso towards Mischief now. The bench crackles softly as he moves. “My father—his name is Odin. He was like thirty and very much single, so a friend of his decided to put an ad in the local newspaper. It was a small town where they lived, he only moved to Reykjavik when he got together with mother.” 

“What, you’re from Iceland?” Mischief asks, eyes wide open in surprise. “I mean, that’s really cool.” 

“Yeah, well.” Thor glances down at his own torso and Mischief's gaze follows his, down from his icy blue eyes to his broad chest, up from the soft skin of his throat to the blonde stubble on his jaw. “I guess that’s kind of visible if you believe in stereotypes.” He waits until Mischief nods and only then does he continue the story, like he’s been waiting for some kind of permission. “So,” he says then, clearing his throat, “there was something in the ad about his name and that he’s not an actual god but, at least, a nice guy. Two days later my mother wrote him a letter and signed it Frigga. Goddess of marriage and wisdom, you know. On their first date, they both had to show their IDs because neither of them would believe that the other wasn’t joking.” 

Mischief laughs at the story and so does everyone else. But his laugh is somehow different this time, he can hear it himself; it’s louder and brighter like it’s coming from somewhere deep down, breaking its way through his throat into the warm air of the café where it can finally burst free, spreading all over the place and making Thor grin back at him in pure joy. 

He covers his lips with a hand while he clears his throat, and the laughter slowly fades away. 

“Well,” he says, “they must have loved those names if they named their son like that.” 

* 

They stay in the café until it’s dark outside and the shadows the blocks of flats cast on them are long and wide and so black like they want to swallow them whole. They sneak into the building when the receptionist isn't watching, because, as Tony says, he loves gossiping about when certain students he doesn't particularly like, but totally not Tony, come and go, and climb the stairs quietly, saying their goodbyes after five floors, going up three more to get to the room he shares with Thor. The door opens smoothly, like it’s trying to help them avoid waking up the entire floor; but the bed crackles under Thor’s weight as he throws himself on it, burying his face into the pillow, and Mischief laughs at him, and it sounds strange again, it’s loud and deep like it was back at the café, and it echoes in the room for a while even after he stops. 

“You were right,” he says, closing the door and walking to his own bed, “I do like your friends.” 

“They like you too,” Thor adds and, taken from the way his bed squeaks and his shadow wanders over to another wall, sits up. In the dim light of the streetlamps oozing through the curtains, Mischief can’t tell for sure. “I guess I’ll go have a shower. You want to come?” 

Mischief shakes his head, his long black locks of hair flying around like an obscure halo. 

“No, I'll just take off my makeup here. You can go if you want.” 

While Thor is away, he lights a candle and places it on the window sill, pulling the curtains open, revealing the photo of the ex-girlfriend, its warm colors a sharp contrast against the ice cold light of the candle; the way coal black, the flame emerald green. He uses its light to grab a small mirror and a box of baby wipes and, leaning over the flame so close that his cheeks bathe in its heat just as much as in its emerald glow, begins to remove his eyeliner, slowly, precisely. He changes his clothes when he's finished; he puts on an oversized t-shirt and folds his daytime clothes, piling them up next to his bed. He places his rings on top of them, along with the mirror and the used baby wipe, and gets under the duvet. 

His eyes are shut when Thor enters the room again, and he probably notices that because his footsteps suddenly get softer, lighter, like he’s tiptoeing through the room so he doesn’t wake him. Mischief huffs out a grateful little sigh, his lips curling into a smile, hidden in the darkness but likely not from Thor’s eyes, and pushes himself up on his elbows, his jaw resting in his hands. 

“Tell me about her,” he says. It sounds like an order, even to his own ears, and Thor must recognize the change in the tone of their conversation too, because he stops tucking his worn clothes into the large sports bag and turns his head, staring in the direction of Mischief with the shadow of pure confusion on his face. 

“There’s not much to say,” he murmurs finally. Mischief shakes his head slowly, his jaw turning in his palm from side to side. 

“You kept her picture,” he says. “I believe there is.” 

Thor shakes his head too, then, after the silence stretches way too long to be seen as coincidental, lets out an annoyed groan. 

“Fine,” he says, climbing into his bed, leaving his wrinkled clothes on the floor. “Her name is Jane. Jane Foster. I met her when we both were travelling around the States—she was doing research and I was touring. Anyway, we met at a concert. It was love at the first sight. I mean, I listened to her scientific stuff for hours because she wouldn’t let me buy her another beer until I proved I wasn’t going to run away if she tells me about her interests. I was kind of dedicated, I guess. Our first proper date was here, actually, I took her down to the docks for a walk—did you know you could walk along the docks in the summer?” 

He stops to take a deep breath. Mischief doesn’t move or say a word; he stays invisible, melting into the shadows in the room, not disturbing Thor for a second. 

“That thing,” Thor goes on, his voice almost a whisper now, “that photo was taken in Reykjavik. In front of my mother's house. They loved each other. I don’t think she'll ever understand why I let Jane leave without me.” 

Mischief speaks now, slowly and quietly, the words rolling off his tongue smoothly like he’s nothing more than one of Thor’s own thoughts. 

“Why did you let her, then?” 

“I didn’t.” That’s a snort, a loud, bitter snort coughed up through rusty voice chords. “You don’t let people go just like that, man. They leave whenever they feel like it.” And he doesn’t speak again. 

* 

It’s early in the morning when Mischief gets up, the sky is covered in grey clouds, its far edge painted rose gold by the rising sun. The candle has burned halfway down and hasn’t set anything on fire; and he blows it now gently, the flame going out with one last emerald sparkle. 

He goes to the bathroom to shower and get dressed. Despite what Thor said the day before, the showers are empty; so he gets ready all alone, washing his hair, lining his eyes, watching in the mirror as his own fingers slide into the golden rings. 

He gets back to the room half an hour later to find a slightly grumpy Thor lying on his stomach, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his fists. His phone is on the pillow next to him, and music is coming from its speakers, the tunes flowing out of the device and onto the bed, crawling down onto the floor and spreading out on the walls, filling the room with heavy drum and screeching bass and the ragged breath of a man, gasping for air between line and line. 

Mischief approaches his own bed quietly and puts his towel on the window sill to dry. It’s dark blue and soft and fluffy, and Thor would probably smile when he sees it if he was willing to open his eyes. 

“Hey,” Mischief says, his voice hardly audible over the loud music. “What are you listening to?” 

“Metal,” Thor grumbles into the pillow. “Folk. Viking.” 

“I see.” Mischief sits down on his bed and leans forward with his knees open, forearms resting on his thighs. “One of the bands you've got CDs from?” 

“Huh?” Thor turns his head to the side, not moving any more than necessary, only enough to squint up at him with one eye. “What, no. Those are mine.” 

“The CDs?” 

“Yeah. I don’t have money for originals.” 

“So you download them.” 

Thor's eyes open wide now and he glares at him in confusion, propelling himself up on his elbows so he can maintain eye contact better. 

“What?” he asks again, shaking his head vehemently. “I don’t download stuff. I have this much respect for the artists I love.” 

“Alright!” Mischief lifts his hands in front of his chest, fingers relaxed, palms facing Thor. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just saw that there was no proper printing on them so I was pretty sure they weren’t fully legal.” 

“They’re legal. They’re mine,” Thor repeats, and Mischief’s breath hitches in his throat audibly. 

“Your—” he starts, but his tongue stumbles upon the word and he has to try again. “You mean you made the music that’s on them?” 

“Yeah, I told you.” Thor manages to sit up properly, the sheets falling off his bare torso, and Mischief lets him see his gaze run down past his stomach then back up to his eyes. “I used to have a band. The one I was touring with when I started dating Jane.” 

“Oh. I didn’t realize.” Mischief jumps to his feet and walks over to Thor’s bed, sitting down on the mattress next to him. “What kind of music did you guys play?” 

Thor shrugs but he’s already turning away, his hand reaching under the bed to find one of the CDs. He hands it to Mischief. The disc has the same messy handwriting on it as the ones he saw the day before; it says _Wrath and Vengeance_ in tall, black capitals. 

“It’s similar to this one,” Thor says with a wide gesture towards his phone. “The others insisted our lyrics are about Norse mythology. They made us look like Viking fighters and chose god names for themselves and all. It was annoying as hell. Which is why I quit.” 

“Annoying,” Mischief repeats, his gaze unfocused, his voice quiet. “How can you not like your own style? I mean, you still have long hair and look like a warrior. And all.” 

“But I love my style!” Thor shakes his head heatedly, his blonde locks jumping free from his messy braid from the day before, falling into his face, covering his eyes. He runs his fingers through them to see properly. “What I didn’t like was them taking advantage of my looks, or my name. That’s not okay if they do it. I can do it; they're mine.” 

Mischief nods, earning a victorious grin from him. 

“And do you do that?” he asks. 

“I'm not sure. Does having a motorbike named Mjolnir count?” His smile is genuinely curious, and it transforms quickly into a scowl when Mischief bursts out laughing. “What?” 

“God, I'm so sorry,” Mischief corrects himself immediately. “I just find it unusual. That you took the name of a mythological weapon and gave it to a—to a fucking motorbike.” 

“It’s the thing that helps Thor fly. The god Thor, I mean. And it sounds cool and I needed a name.” 

Mischief hums in agreement and Thor's lips curl into a wide smile again. 

“I don’t think I can argue with that.” 

They end up listening to even more music on Thor’s phone, to fake Vikings' legends about endless battles, to fifteen-minute long rock ballads about passion and grief; and every song sounds different and every chord sounds new, and Mischief hums along with the tunes when he manages to memorize one. Thor shows him a few songs from his own album, his eyes lighting up with sheer pride when he sees Mischief start nodding his head to the rhythm. 

“It’s good,” he adds when the song is over. “I swear it is. And the lyrics are pretty cool.” 

“Thanks, man.” Thor stops the music and extends his arm towards Mischief, like he’s about to hand his phone over to him. “Come on, it’s your turn,” he explains. “I saw the band logo on your shirt yesterday.” 

So Mischief tells him about the band with the wolf cub and the bleeding heart; he talks about their hectic concerts in the smoky, stinky little pubs; he tells the stories behind the logo and the band name and each of their album titles; and Thor’s gaze is focused on the way his lips are moving the entire time, eyelids immobile like, in his trance-like state, he's forgotten to blink. 

“Show me that one,” he interrupts while Mischief is talking about the first song he heard from them. “All the stuff you're saying sounds so strange, I can’t imagine what it could be like.” 

Mischief takes the phone from him and types the title, his fingertips meeting the screen with soft little knocks. He lets out a disappointed groan, then, turning the phone to show Thor the results. 

“I can’t find it,” he says. “I can sing a few lines if you want, but I don’t think you'll like that.” 

Thor’s fingers tighten around the phone. 

“I'll decide when I heard it. Come on.” 

Mischief clears his throat before he begins; but when he does, it’s a real melody that rolls off his tongue and slides through his lips, he can see it in Thor’s widening eyes. He sings about snowy fields and rotten soil beneath scarlet red ice; he sings about sex and sweat and suffocation; and Thor's attention is on him the whole time, his eyes closing shut slowly and his head hanging, his jaw brushing against his chest as it moves from side to side in some kind of slow headbanging as he gives himself over to Mischief’s pulsing, raw voice. 

He has looked at him before. But then, it was sheer curiosity that brightened his glance, a hint of friendly interest in a person he doesn’t know a thing about; and now, as the song is over and he opens his eyes to look back up at him, his pupils are wide and his gaze pushing deep into Mischief's, like he’s searching for something in there, and his eyelids tremble for a second. 

Mischief runs his tongue over his lips, brushing them against one another to wet them evenly. 

“So,” he says, voice still hoarse. “That was _Snow White._ ” 

“That was cool,” Thor nods. He doesn't look away, but then he must remember what's going on because he runs a hand through his hair to get it out of his face, and when he's finished, his gaze is calm and less focused. “And your voice is totally alright,” he adds. 

“Thanks.” Mischief moves around a bit; he turns to face Thor properly and pulls his legs up onto the bed, tucking them under himself. “You ever sing?” he asks, and Thor snorts at him. 

“Hell no,” he says decidedly. “I'm a bassist. I could probably play if I had my guitar here, but there’s no way I'm going to sing.” 

When Tony opens the door an hour later, they're both lying on Thor’s bed, legs hanging to the floor, their singing ragged and hoarse and their eyes filled with tears of laughter. 

* 

He watches Thor. 

He watches him walk and he watches him talk and he watches him move; he watches him swear while he's combing his messy hair and he watches him choke on a gulp of beer while he's laughing harder than he should. 

He watches him stare at Mischief in the mirror when he’s taking off his makeup, and he shots him a glance that says he's noticed the attention he’s getting. Then he smiles at him, softly, with only a tiny twitch of the corner of his lips, and that smile says he's pleased by it. 

He thanks him when he brings a cup of fresh coffee to a class they both participate in; it’s a large paper cup, full of espresso, black and bitter and almost characterless, but there’s a blunt sweetness to it, the taste of honey he once mentioned to Thor he liked. He laughs when Steve elbows Bucky in the ribs and gets nothing in return but a kiss on the cheek and a quick promise about getting some coffee later. He listens to Thor tell Natasha to shut the fuck up when she asks way too many way too personal questions about Mischief's childhood, and he lays his hand on Thor’s thigh under the table when the others glare at him in surprise. He observes the way Thor’s working out thoroughly, and he lets him keep touching his arms while he’s trying to show him how to handle some weights. 

He listens to him compliment his eyes without the liner. 

He gets to their room a few minutes later than Thor every night, and he listens to him move around, his ear pressed to the door. He listens to him sit on his bed and light a candle, and he enters the room to find him lying on his back, eyes only halfway open but fully awake, waiting for Mischief to arrive and ask him the questions he has no reason to answer. 

He watches Thor fall for him. 

He watches him fall. 

* 

“I was four at that time,” Thor says. He’s leaning towards Mischief over the candle, the green flame painting an emerald glow into his blue eyes. It’s early morning on a Saturday, but the light of the rising sun can’t get through the closed curtains. “When my father left, I mean. When he came back, I was five, I guess, but he wasn’t away for a whole year. And he brought home an infant.” 

Mischief raises an eyebrow at him. 

“An infant,” he echoes. “Most people give their wives roses when they want to apologize.” 

“Most people, yes,” Thor agrees. “But he knew how much my mother wanted another child. He said he found the kid in an orphanage, and that he reminded him of her so much that he couldn’t leave him. And that’s how they adopted my brother.” 

Mischief leans forward too, his nose casting a long shadow on his cheek in the glowing light. 

“Tell me about your brother.” 

“His name is Loki,” Thor says, his voice tripping over the name. “Or was, I don’t know.” 

“Was?” 

“I don’t know,” Thor repeats, and he sounds almost irritated only to become gentle a mere moment later. “He loved his name, you know,” he goes on. “It’s thanks to him that I know the figures we were named after. He loved the idea that our parents thought we were as awesome as gods.” 

“Or Jotunns, right?” Mischief murmurs. Thor shakes his head, making his blonde locks fly around in the golden shimmer the candle casts on them. He washed his hair the evening before and it’s still not completely dry; as it moves past the candle, a drop of water falls into the flame and boils immediately, puffing a wet cloud into the air with a soft sizzle. 

“Jotnar,” he corrects Mischief, and, for a second, his tone sounds almost automatic. “Jotnar is the plural form. But yes, he was fine with that. I wouldn’t say that being something other than a god disturbed him. He learned everything he could about the old Scandinavian myths, and he taught me it all. He used to say he wanted a wolf for a pet so he could name him Fenrir. And a snake, and name him Jormungandr. One Christmas, he gave me a tiny wooden hammer and made me call it Mjolnir, and we played with it until I hit a rock too hard and it broke in half.” 

Thor’s gaze wanders away from Mischief’s eyes, over to the blank wall behind his back. His phone that he’s left on the window sill buzzes for the fifth time in a row, but he ignores it. 

“What did your brother say then?” Mischief asks softly, and Thor’s lips curl into a wide smile even though his gaze is still unfocused. 

“He said, well, brother, you shall control your powers with your bare hands now. You don’t need an object to help you anymore. And then we were almost struck by lightning, literally, because we'd been playing near the edge of a cliff by the sea and a thunderstorm was coming. And, obviously, we were supposed to run back home, but Loki wanted to stay so we stayed.” Thor shakes his head again, slowly this time, like his own words have put him into disbelief. “Our father used to say I had to look after him, to make sure he gets everything he needs. In retrospect, I don’t think he meant making sure he gets a pretty bad cold by playing in ankles deep puddles.” 

“In retrospect, everything seems much clearer, doesn’t it?” 

“Yeah, well.” Thor pauses to clear his throat, and when he speaks again, his gaze has returned to Mischief’s eyes and his voice to his usual tone. “Anyway,” he says, almost casually, “those were the most fun times of my life. We ran away from home every time we saw that rain was coming, because he wanted to make our games more realistic. He was the god of tricks and lies, and those things were easy to play, but thunder—that’s not something ten year olds can create out of thin air. I did try, though,” he adds with a wide grin. “Somehow, it never worked.” 

Thor's phone buzzes. Mischief glances at it. Thor doesn’t. 

“Aren’t you going to pick that up?” Mischief asks, gesturing towards the window. Thor shrugs. 

“We're talking,” is the brief explanation he gives, and then his attention is back on the memories Mischief’s been pulling out of him. “So, tricks and lies. That same winter when I got my hammer, he got a small pocket knife. It looked pretty good. Seemed like a piece of wood when it was closed, you could literally have mistaken it for a stick if it hadn’t been heavier. And the blade was very sharp and very thin, so when it was open, the whole thing looked like a proper dagger, only much smaller. He was, what, seven? Our father was furious when he saw it. He was worried he'd cut himself, or me, or somebody else by accident. But our mother insisted he should keep it—he got it from her, you know. She said that he was wrong, that Loki was mature enough not to hurt anyone accidentally. And she was right. He always did it on purpose.” 

A door swings open somewhere on their floor, the sound echoes through the entire corridor followed by blurred swearing. Mischief keeps his gaze locked with Thor’s this time. 

“What do you mean?” he whispers, leaning slightly forward over the candle, his face only inches away from Thor’s now. Thor’s eyelids tremble like he’s shivering, like the touch of Mischief’s cool breath on his skin has made him shiver; and his voice turns quiet too, quiet and almost shy, the voice of a man sharing something the boy inside him should be ashamed of. 

“He stabbed me once,” he murmurs. “We were playing at the cliff. He pretended he was a snake, because Loki, the god Loki, is a shape shifter, and then suddenly he was shouting I had to be cautious of his fangs, and he stabbed me. Then he ran away. I went after him and caught him, because I was faster and stronger, that’s why he thought it was fair that he used his dagger, I think, and I wrestled him to the ground. We fell on the dagger when it was still open. It got stuck under Loki and cut through his clothes. It left a pretty deep scar on his hip, it was still there years later. But he didn’t mind. He said that made us brothers in blood, even if our blood wasn’t the same. I guess that was not long after he learned he was adopted.” 

Mischief lifts a hand and holds it to Thor’s face, not touching his skin, just the very tip of his stubble, his fingers lighter than air. 

“Do you still have your scar?” he whispers. Thor closes his eyes for a second. 

“It’s—” he begins, and then never finishes the sentence. The door of their room bursts open and Thor pulls away frantically, only to face a smirking Tony standing in the doorway. 

“Uh-oh,” Tony says, his tone more mocking than worried, “are we disturbing something? Nice candle, by the way. Must have some copper in its wick.” 

Mischief stares back at him with a blank expression, blank enough to look like he’s ready to murder him with his bare hands. Tony tears his gaze away from him, but someone else's remains. It’s Pepper. And Bucky and Natasha, all glaring at him with wide eyes. Pepper and Bucky are likely checking out his makeup—he's wearing two different colors on his eyelids today, a thin, matte black line right above his lashes and a wide, glittery flash of green above the first one, filling up its pointed curve. But Natasha is not the kind of person to be interested in anyone’s makeup but her own. 

“Your mother called,” he tells Thor while still eyeing Mischief. “She said you wouldn’t pick up the phone.” 

“You've got his mother’s number?” Mischief asks with his eyebrows raised, but Thor’s expression is already beginning to seem panicked. 

“What did you tell her?” he asks, jumping to his feet. Natasha shrugs. 

“That last time I checked, you were still alive. So either you’re an ignorant asshole, or your roommate choked you to death in your sleep.” 

“Thanks a lot,” Mischief murmurs, and Natasha grins at him. 

“Anytime.” 

Thor’s already got his phone in his hand, and as he's scrolling through his missed calls, he furrows his eyebrows more and more and more. 

“Fuck,” he eventually concludes. Then he dials a number and holds the phone to his ear, silencing everyone in the room with a murderous glance. 

It doesn’t take long for Tony to get bored with the quiet. He enters the room properly and throws himself onto Thor’s bed, along with a seemingly sleepy Bucky who he immediately tries to kick off the mattress with very little success. 

“Do you guys think I can fit in there too?” Steve asks, scratching the back of his neck with a truly worried expression, and even Mischief laughs at the scenario when Bucky pulls him on top of himself, which results in a very loud and very painful cry from Tony's direction. 

The conversation Thor has on the phone is completely inaudible over the hysterical laughter. But they get quiet soon enough when he hangs up, mostly thanks to the sharp glance Natasha shots them while turning to face Thor, her hands on her hips. 

“So?” she asks. Mischief visibly winces at her commanding tone in a clear attempt to mock her, and earns a muffled chuckle from Tony. 

“I talked to her.” 

“No shit,” Bucky interrupts immediately. “Is she coming or not?” 

“Good God.” Steve covers Bucky’s mouth with his palm. “He really wants to get more of those awesome cookies. But he'd also like to see your mom because she’s an extraordinarily nice lady, he’s just too much of an asshole to say so. Right, Bucks?” 

Bucky mumbles something under Steve's hand, his voice too muffled to be understood. Steve pulls his hand away to let him speak, and Bucky’s first reaction is to pout at him. 

“There’s cinnamon in them,” he defends himself then, and Natasha does a literal facepalm. 

* 

As it turns out, Thor’s birthday is only a week later. As it turns out, Thor’s mother is paying him a visit, just like she did the year before. And, to everyone’s poorly hidden delight, she's bringing cookies. 

Thor tells Mischief about her the night before his birthday. He’s talked about her before, but never this much. He’s mentioned the strange way she found a husband and the strong connection she had with her younger son; but now, he speaks about her and no one else, about her childhood and her dreams and her unrealistic goals in her own education, about the things she’s achieved and the things she’s had to give up, about her long, lonely trips to the States to visit Thor on his birthdays, about the pieces of her past he assumes but will never know for sure. Thor talks about her for hours, until his voice is hoarse and his throat is dry, and Mischief has to lay his index finger on his lips to make him stop for breath. 

“What?” Thor murmurs, his lips moving under Mischief's touch with surprising ease. Mischief smiles at him. 

“I know you’re not finished,” he says, “but it’s your birthday.” With his free hand, he reaches for his phone and shows the locked screen to Thor. It’s dark grey, except for the four numbers, written with thin white lines. It’s four zeros. It’s midnight. 

“Am I getting a present?” Thor grins, somewhere between a desperate attempt to be flirty and an even more desperate attempt to get back to his story as fast as he can. 

“You are,” Mischief nods. “I didn’t have the time to fix it for tonight, but you’ll get it in the evening. If you can spend it with me, of course.” 

Thor’s lips are still right under the tip of his finger, moving against his cold skin. 

“Of course,” he repeats, and it’s a clear yes and it’s a soft kiss, pressed onto his finger almost secretly. 

They decide to celebrate in the same café they visited on the very first day that Mischief spent with them, so that’s where they are gathered around a large table, waiting for Frigga to arrive. They’re seated right next to the men's restroom and constantly taking turns going there, which might have something to do with the empty jugs of beer piled up in front of them. 

Even though everyone has promised they wouldn’t get Thor anything, he’s busy counting his presents now. There’s nothing too serious among the torn pieces of wrapping paper—a bottle of moderately cheap whiskey, a guitar shaped medallion on a leather string, two boxes of chocolate and a new pair of bootlaces because Bruce noticed that his old ones had been getting worn out and decided to buy him something he'd actually use. Mischief’s gift is nowhere to be seen, but no one makes a comment about it. 

It’s ten past five, that’s clearly visible on the large face of Tony’s wristwatch. Mischief pulls his phone out of his jeans' pocket and checks it. Still ten past five. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, leaning closer to Thor, resting his jaw on his shoulder and his lips against his ear, “but isn't your mother a tiny bit late?” 

Peter has just finished telling some slightly lame joke, and while Pepper and Steve and Bruce are politely chuckling, Tony gets into a contest with Bucky about finishing their beers as fast as they can. Clint mentions that Tony is cheating because he’s got a lot less left and Bucky’s drinking from a bottle which is clearly harder to empty quickly; Bucky says that it’s even better to win like this. Bucky loses. Tony laughs. Peter stares at his orange juice miserably. 

Thor turns his attention away from them, tilting his head so his temple is touching Mischief’s forehead. 

“What’s the time?” he whispers back. 

“Ten past five. I know that’s not a lot, but I still need to leave at half past.” 

“No, she’s arriving at six,” Thor says, shaking his head slowly, his hair rubbing against Mischief’s skin. “And you’re leaving at half past six, right?” 

“Half past five.” Mischief lets his mouth fall open into a worried grimace. “Hell, we screwed up. I thought she was coming earlier and you thought I was leaving later.” 

Thor turns his head and leans back to look at him, squinting his eyes in confusion. 

“Don’t you tell me you can’t stay.” 

“I’m so, so sorry.” Mischief places a hand on Thor’s shoulder where his head has been resting, and squeezes it gently. “I must go.” 

“Where are you even going?” Thor asks, but Mischief is already standing up and reaching for his jacket. 

“Trust me, Thor, I would stay if this wasn’t truly urgent.” He puts the jacket on, and leans over the table, hands placed in the middle of it to keep his weight and catch everyone’s attention. “Guys, there’s been a misunderstanding,” he says in his softest voice. “I must go now. I might be back later in the evening, and I'll try to hurry, but I'm afraid this is going to take long.” 

Nobody asks where he’s going. They say their goodbyes and continue talking; even Thor, who, after making Mischief promise that he'll be back, tries to win the contest against Tony that Bucky has just lost. 

“Hey, Laufeyson.” It’s Natasha who calls after him when he’s crossing the café on his way to the door. Mischief turns to look at her. She hasn’t spoken the whole time, except saying happy birthday once with a forced smile, and now she’s standing up with her leather jacket in her hand. 

“Yes?” he calls back, eyebrows raised. 

“I'll walk you out.” Natasha climbs over the bench, kicking Bucky in the ribs in the process. “Bucks, come on.” 

Bucky stands up too. He’s moving slower than normally, his limbs uncontrolled and his posture unbalanced. He must be dizzy with all the beer he's drunk. He can’t be as good of a fighter as he is when he’s sober. That’s not bad. 

Natasha hasn’t drunk more than what she spoke. That could be problematic. 

Mischief waits for them in the middle of the crowd that always gets gathered together by the evening, and Thor notices that he hasn’t left after emptying his jug and defeating Tony. 

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” he shouts. Mischief chuckles into his palm. 

“I'll be back by eleven to take you from the others. If that’s alright with you guys, of course.” 

Thor nods before they could, and Tony snorts loudly. 

“Guess who's getting laid tonight!” 

Mischief shrugs with a coy smile, and starts for the door again, not waiting for Natasha and Bucky to catch up. 

They do anyway, obviously. That’s what they've been trained for. But it’s also what Mischief’s been trained for over the past few weeks, so when they get out of the building and he’s caught by Natasha and pressed against the damp brick wall with her hand on his mouth and her forearm on his throat, she must know he's letting himself be held there on purpose. 

“Woah, Romanov,” he says with a wide grin, but his light chuckle sounds more like a cough, it's raw and hoarse and almost pained as it tears through his squeezed throat. “Easy there.” 

Natasha snarls at him. Bucky puts his hands on his hips. 

“You're surprisingly daring for a liar,” she hisses. Her breath smells like minty gum and sweet lipstick, and it’s forcing its way right up into his nose. “Where are you going again?” 

Mischief lifts a hand to his mouth and gently peels her fingers off his skin. 

“It would be much easier to answer if you allowed me to breathe,” he says. His voice is broken; his gaze isn’t. Natasha lets him go with a loud grunt, pushing herself away from him then stepping close again, like she’s trying to prevent him from running away. Not like he gives the smallest sign of an intention to leave. He’s standing straight, his back to the wall in a much more comfortable position now, arms crossed in front of his chest and one foot resting against the bricks. 

“Speak,” Natasha demands, and he opens his eyes wide. 

“I feel there wouldn’t be a point to that. It seems to me that you have very specific ideas about what you would like to hear; and since you’re so certain about them being correct, you might as well say them yourself.” 

Natasha steps even closer, keeping her face only inches away from Mischief’s. Bucky folds his arms to mimic Mischief's posture. Or to keep his balance. He seems tipsy enough. 

“But I'd love to hear them from you,” Natasha says. “Or do you need more time to come up with an excuse for leaving?” 

“Give me one, if you feel like it.” 

“I think,” Natasha begins finally, then has to stop to breathe in deep, “I think you’re trying to avoid meeting Frigga. You messed up your schedule on purpose so you didn’t have to tell Thor you were running from your mother.” 

Mischief glares at her with nothing but pure annoyance radiating from his entire being. 

“His mother,” he corrects her. 

“Your mother,” she repeats. Mischief can see Bucky’s eyes widen in surprise. “I talked to Fury. Asked him about your first name. Then I called Frigga and got her to describe her younger son to me. And guess what, that guy must be around your age, and his eyes are the same weird light green, or blue, or whatever, as yours. Isn’t that a neat coincidence,” and she only whispers the name, sharply and between her teeth like she’s trying to bite down on the word itself, “Loki?” 

His face remains expressionless. 

“It is for sure. Even though I doubt Fury knows about your little investigation. And I also doubt you'd want him to learn about it.” 

“He told me your first—” 

“He's never heard my first name,” he interrupts. “Do you know what _I_ think, Romanov? That you sneaked into Fury's office, found nothing but my father’s name on my carton, then turned on his computer and searched until you found proof that a certain amount of money had been sent to him from my father’s account. But I'm not sure what you did then. Went to the police station that handled my father’s death and found out how many times I've been adopted? Found a way into my father’s office and logged into his computer to see who inherited most of his wealth? Called Frigga immediately?” He looks into her eyes, leaning even closer, their foreheads almost touching and their breathing heavy. “No, I don’t think you did that. I think you managed to find childhood photos of me without letting her, or Thor, know what you were doing. You’re too nice to hurt them this much. Your love towards them wouldn’t let you. But,” and his tone changes now, his voice is lower and softer, his eyebrows raised slowly, pulling his face into a concerned expression, “that leaves me with a question I can’t seem to find an answer for. What exactly is your plan? Force me to leave before I tell them who I am? How are you planning to persuade me? Threaten to tell them yourself?” 

Natasha’s glance is colder than ice, and sharper than her nails that started cutting into his wrists under the loose jacket at some point. 

“Hand you over to the police,” she says. 

“For what? Not faking that Frigga, who was never my mother, is my mother?” 

“For murdering Laufey.” 

There’s still no sign of shock on Loki’s face, but the blood rushes out of it this time, leaving his cheeks cold and stiff and white. 

“Prove it,” he says. Natasha lets him go and opens her arms, shrugging helplessly. 

“I can’t.” 

“Not even with the evidence you found in his office? Not even with the information you used to prove it to yourself?” 

“You know I never liked you. I wasn’t exactly hard to convince.” 

“Oh, but you’re such a precise little girl, aren’t you? You wouldn’t base an accusation on your mere lack of fondness. No, I think you've already found something, but haven’t had the heart to tell Thor. What did you find?” 

Natasha shakes her head, her red locks flying around in the cold air. 

“Nothing.” 

“I don’t believe you.” Loki leans closer to her with his back still against the wall. “I think you dug a bit deeper into my father’s files than necessary. Did you see the changes made in his will just days before his death? Did you notice that one of the cameras wasn’t working during his suicide? Did you watch the recording that shows a shadow that doesn’t belong to him? Funny thing the police never noticed.” 

“You forced him to jump out of his window,” Natasha says, her voice like ice, her clenched fists like stone. 

“I convinced him,” Loki corrects her. “Words can be a lot more effective than guns and punches. Maybe you should remember that sometimes.” 

“I just did.” Natasha sounds suddenly calm, almost delighted; anger gone from her voice, tension from her muscles. She smiles up at him and steps back, turning to leave already. “Thanks for the confession, by the way.” 

It’s only a second that Loki spends with letting panic settle clearly on his face; then he looks relaxed, then he looks enraged, then he smiles back at Natasha. 

“So what shall we do?” He pushes himself away from the wall, and starts walking finally, up and down the narrow sidewalk. Natasha stops to listen and looks very displeased with herself for doing so. “I’m here keeping two secrets, which I'd very much like to remain as they are—hidden. You’re here, keeping those same secrets, unable to do anything with them unless you want to tear the heart of your beloved Thor into pieces. Oh, and Barnes is here, and I highly doubt he knows what’s going on.” 

“No, I think I'm getting it,” Bucky interrupts. “You’re trying to talk Tasha into letting you keep fucking your brother.” He runs his fingers through his hair, quickly, messily, like what he's just said is suddenly upsetting him. “Jesus, man, your brother?” 

The street is silent for a moment, almost like it’s frozen into a stiff dollop of cars and people and a piece of yesterday’s newspaper carried by the wind slowly and soundlessly passing by. Natasha is staring. Bucky is staring. And then, suddenly, Loki falls to his knees in a large, theatrical movement, his palms pressed against his ears to keep out his own pained scream. 

“He's not my brother!” he shouts, squeezing his eyes tight shut. “And Frigga's not my mother, and I'm not fucking him! I'm just trying to be close to him, don't you understand?” He glances up at them, his eyes shining with warm tears. “Don’t tell them who I am. Please. If there’s anyone who should understand, it’s you. Barnes, look at me!” 

Bucky furrows his brows. 

“I've got a sister,” he says. “I really don’t want to fuck her.” 

“But you slept with Natasha, right? And now you’re best friends, almost like brother and sister.” He looks at Natasha now, his gaze broken, pleading. “If lust can turn into brotherhood, then it must work the other way around too, can’t you see? I've regretted running away from home a thousand times since I did it, but the reason I had to run was to be as far away from Thor as I only could. It seemed impossible to live with the knowledge that I wanted someone who should have been like a brother to me. He can’t know I once was family to him. He can’t know I loved him even when we were kids; he can’t know I'm here to start it all over, as anything but brothers this time. Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him if you want to see him happy as much as I do.” 

Bucky’s lips have fallen open. Natasha looks just as irritated as she did before. But when she opens her mouth to speak, what comes out of it is much friendlier than anyone could have assumed it was going to be. 

“We won’t,” she says. “Not if you disappear after giving Thor a believable explanation why. There’s no need to break his heart once again; that’s precisely what I'm trying to avoid. Just don’t stick around for long.” 

Loki nods and wipes his eyes with the back of his hands; black lumps of mascara stick to his cheeks and to his fingers. He must look like a mess, and the other two are staring at him the way people would stare at one. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Natasha snorts. 

“Thank my affection for Thor. If I liked him only a tiny bit less, I'd tell him everything just to see how disgusted he is by you.” 

* 

Frigga isn't late when she arrives, and she isn't early, either. She enters the café exactly on time, after phoning Thor in slight panic a few minutes earlier to tell him she might have got lost. He goes to fetch her but is only gone for a few minutes; and when he gets back with her arm around his waist, she doesn’t look like someone who needed to be rescued from the unfamiliar streets outside. More like someone who wanted to greet her son without anybody around, and who's kind of pleased with herself for making up a plan to trick him into going to get her. 

Loki glances at Natasha. She's smiling but her eyes seem too focused on Frigga's expression; too analytical, almost critical. She must be thinking she just found out who Loki learned his little tricks from. 

Frigga gets to their table and everyone stands up—even the other guests, the complete strangers surrounding them lift their heads to glare at her. Loki checks if anyone’s watching him, and then he looks up too, letting his gaze wander all over her features; the soft curves of her slim body, the strong lines of her bony face, the golden curls of her hair, forced into a thick braid that runs down her back to the waistline of her white jeans. 

She looks like a queen. And she acts like one, even though it comes to her so naturally it's hardly noticeable unless one pays close attention to her behavior; those people around her are probably surprised at their sudden interest in this stranger, unsure of what it is about her that’s caught their eyes and wouldn’t let them go. But it’s right there, it’s in the way she leans over the table to kiss Pepper on the cheek and in the quiet chuckle she lets out when she loses her balance in the process, it’s in the gesture she makes while shaking Peter's hand and in the pink blush blooming on her face when Tony kisses the back of hers. 

She looks beautiful. She looks elegant. And she looks broken by her age. 

Loki grits his teeth when the people around him begin to lose interest and turn away from her, but he does the same anyway. He’s sitting only a few meters away from the group, wearing a purple hoodie, hiding his face under the hood and his presence under the bright color that makes people wonder why anyone would wear it but forget to check who that anyone is. 

There's a bottle of beer on the table in front of him, a thing he hasn't touched since he took it there. He reaches for it now and lifts it to his lips, his fingers tightening around it so hard that they turn pale, even paler than his skin normally is, and he takes his time relaxing them while taking a long sip from the beer. It's a very long sip. Long enough so he can let his head fall slightly back and his eyes turn downwards instead of glaring at the ceiling; long enough so he can find Frigga once again and focus on her face, the face that lights up when Thor brings her a glass of wine, the face that doesn't care about the wine itself. 

Loki puts down the bottle, holding it in both hands now, his nails pressed against it like he's peeling off its label. Frigga keeps chuckling and laughing and making small talk, loudly enough for anyone in any corner of the room to hear, and her voice is sweet because she has Thor on her side, and Loki doesn't lift his gaze again. 

* 

He takes his phone from under his hoodie at some point and checks the time. A minute later, he chugs down what's left of his beer. He leaves his table silently, the smoothness of his movements could be almost disturbing if anyone was watching, but all of the guests are busy minding their own table, the drinks and the friends, mostly the drinks, and nobody's paying him any attention. 

When, somewhat later, he's back to the café, everyone seems interested in him once again, as if him entering the crowded room has changed its entire atmosphere; and it must have because people are raising their heads, even the complete strangers, even the ones that didn't care about Frigga's appearance, because he, in some way, looks even more intriguing than she does. It could be thanks to his makeup—it's been perfected now, the messy eyeshadow smoothed out and the broken wing of the eyeliner sharper than even; it could be thanks to the clothes he's wearing, the silky shirt buttoned down to show white skin under his golden necklace; it could be thanks to the way his black locks are combed into a tight ponytail starting at the back of his neck, to the high cheekbones and to the piercings, each bolder now that no shadow is cast on them by his hair. But it's his smile, the wide grin with flashing white teeth and the gentle curve of his eyebrows that softens his features, that people seem to be staring at, turning their heads as though trying to make him direct his smile at them. 

Thor's sitting at their table between Tony and Natasha and checking his wristwatch just as often as the aisle leading to the door; still, he doesn't immediately notice Loki. When he does, though, his eyes light up with something like a flame, it's hot and sudden and exists only for a moment before a strange calmness settles over his features. Loki gets closer, slowing his steps, pressing his gaze into Thor's and, for a while, strictly avoiding Natasha's. She's content with that, her smile makes that clear, and that's when Loki looks at her too; when her lips are curling upwards so hard it almost seems like she's about to start laughing, he shots a glance at her, it's fast and sharp like the point of a dagger, it doesn't last long enough to wound properly but it's surprising enough to make her freeze for a second and not continue smiling anytime soon. 

"Hey there," he calls when he finally arrives, placing his hands on two shoulders, pushing them apart so he can lean over the table. It's Bucky and Steve that he manages to separate, and his expression becomes apologetic when he realizes his mistake. "Hell, sorry, guys, didn't mean to do that." He straightens up, letting them move closer to each other. "You don't mind if I steal your big guy for a second, do you?" 

"They don't." It's Thor who answers, on his feet already, reaching under the table to get his backpack, then over the table to shake everyone's hands. "Thanks for tonight." 

When he's got around the table, Loki steps closer to him and puts an arm around his waist. 

"Very subtle, Laufeyson," Tony murmurs. Thor doesn't seem to have heard it, or to care if he has, but Loki turns his head to glance back over his shoulder and winks at Tony. 

Mjolnir is parked in front of the café. Loki's already noticed that on his way in, but he looks around anyway before walking to the motorbike, patting its leather seat with a light wave of his hand. 

"Want me to drive?" he asks. 

"Hell no," Thor says immediately. Then his face softens and his hand disappears in one of his pockets, and a moment later he's extending his arm towards Loki, his keys laying in the middle of his palm. "But I have no idea where we're going and I'm pretty sure you won't tell me, so I don't really have a choice." 

Loki's eyes widen in surprise; it's too much, it's clearly fake, and he ends up grinning at Thor with such satisfaction that actually makes him try to take the keys back. But Loki's faster than him, it takes him only a second to wrap his fingers around Thor's wrist and stop him from moving. 

"I didn't know you were this smart," he says, his fingers sliding over Thor's palm and into the key ring. "Thanks."  

"You better be careful," Thor groans, but he doesn't seem nearly as annoyed as he's probably trying to be. He lets Loki climb onto the seat and sits behind him, his arms folding around his torso, his fingers gripping his shirt. 

"You be careful." Loki rolls his eyes, and Thor can probably guess that even without seeing it, because he groans again, somewhat more annoyedly and a lot less articulately this time. "I don't want this shirt to be torn." 

* 

The air was cool enough in the center of the city, but as they get closer to the river that flows through the far end of the suburbs, away from the crowds in the bars and cafés, away from everything that's alive in the middle of the night, it turns even colder, sending shivers up Thor's spine and goosebumps down his arms, the soft blonde hairs on his skin rise from time to time, and his warm breath paints grey clouds onto the dark sky spread out above them. They're riding fast, faster than Thor would allow Loki to drive if he was sober enough to complain, but he seems to be enjoying it now—he's leaning forward over Loki's shoulder, pressing his chest against his back, and he's laughing, quietly but steadily, with his nostrils wide open and his eyes closed. 

He hasn't asked for at least fifteen minutes where they're going. From the way he's ignoring the question, he might as well have forgotten that he once wanted to know it. He's still talking, obviously, but he's talking about Frigga now, how it was only a matter of minutes that she and Loki missed each other, how he wishes she stayed for longer. 

"She was so beautiful," he murmurs from time to time, right into Loki's ears so he can hear him over the loud grumble of the engine, even though he speaks those words so softly they would hardly be audible in a quieter setting. "And so sad. I always hope she won't be sad when she sees me, but it's not me she's grieving so seeing me never helps." 

"Sad?" Loki repeats. "I thought she'd be happy to see you." 

"She was." Thor is silent for a moment. He lets his head fall back, his jaw leaving Loki's shoulder and his lips leaving Loki's ear; his hair flying upwards as the wind blows through the blonde locks, heavy with sweat and the scent of beer; his voice getting louder but harder to make out, muffled by the noise of the engine when he speaks again. "The part of her that cares for me was happier than ever." 

"She's your mother," Loki says. "I doubt there's a part of her that doesn't care for you." 

"Yes there is." Thor sits up straight again, and his tone is suddenly commanding, like he's giving an order to Loki, an order to understand what he means, an order not to doubt it even if he doesn't. "There's a part that cared for my brother, and that part died years ago when he ran away from home." 

Mjolnir stops suddenly and Thor's breath hitches in surprise, holding him from finishing the thought. 

"Is this where we were going?" he asks. Loki turns around in his seat, with his head and torso first, then with his entire body; he lifts one leg over the steering head and the other over Thor's thighs, placing a palm against Thor's chest and pushing him backwards to make room for the movement, grabbing his shirt and pulling him forwards to close the distance between them. 

"Is this where you took Jane on your first date?" 

Thor looks around slowly, as if he has to fight the urge to stay paralyzed; his gaze wanders over the buildings on his right, the tall factory walls made of grey concrete and the large letters on their roofs, the names of the owners glowing in neon yellow lights. Then he turns his head, raising his jaw again until he's staring at the sky above them, at the smooth darkness unbroken by clouds or stars, into the wind that's playing with his hair and caressing his skin, making his eyelids tremble when he tries to keep his eyes open for too long. To his left, there are tiny houses with tiny gardens, their walls built of red bricks and their fences of wrought iron, the bars reaching up as if trying to pierce the air with their pointed ends; but Thor's glance slides over these fast, only to come to a stop somewhere behind Loki, somewhere on the black waves of the river or the fog hovering above the waves or the jetties hiding behind the fog. And then, when the silence has stretched on for so long it could seem awkward if anyone was watching them, he turns his gaze back to Loki, letting it rest on his face, his cheeks and his lips and his eyes, observing them as if for the first time. 

"It is," he says, and Loki gives him his softest smile, one that looks apologetic, one that doesn't look regretful. 

"That's what I thought." 

He sits closer to Thor, his thighs on each side of Thor's hips, his legs still over Thor's legs, and reaches behind him, not pulling him into a hug but opening his backpack, grabbing two bottles of beer with a knowing expression and a candle with a surprised one. 

"You brought this?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at Thor. 

"Well." Thor starts fidgeting around like he's trying to get away, if not from Loki then from the question, but his gaze is still on Loki's eyes and it's not leaving, Loki's not allowing him to leave. 

"Well?" 

"Well, you always light one of these when you want to talk. And I assumed you'd want to talk," Thor manages. Loki nods, then shakes his head, tilting it from side to side in a movement that could be small enough for Thor not to notice it if he wasn't focusing on him as decidedly as he is. 

"Doesn't that imply that tonight it's not me who wants to talk?" he asks. And it's Thor who nods this time, taking the bottles from Loki and popping them open with his keys, letting his backpack slide down his arms and land on the asphalt with a quiet thud. He hands a bottle back to Loki but doesn't let it go when he tries to take it; he lets Loki's fingers linger over his in their search for a good grip. 

"Could you light the candle, Mischief?" he murmurs. 

Loki takes his lighter and touches the tiny orange flame to the wick; it catches fire with a blinding flash, emerald sparkles fly into the air and land on the back of his hand, the hand holding the candle between their chests, close enough for the heat to creep through their shirts. 

"Alright," he begins, his voice merely a whisper, "you just said your brother ran away. I thought he was dead." 

Thor takes a gulp from his beer. 

"That's what I sometimes think," he answers. "But if he is, he died later, when he was already away from home." 

"Where did he go?" 

"To his father. To his real father, that's what he said—can you imagine that? His _real_ father. As if our parents hadn't given him everything he needed. They gave him a safe place to sleep and warm food to eat, sure, but they gave him their love, too." It could be the flame of the candle that paints a strange light into Thor's eyes, but it could be his rage as well, the same rage that makes his voice hoarse, his breath ragged and his knuckles white as chalk as he clenches his fists. "Our mother tried to pass her knowledge onto him, like all her knowledge, not just what she'd learned in school. She trusted him. And he trusted her too, and it's so fucked up, because that was why he said he had to go." 

Loki raises his eyebrows questioningly. 

"He told you he would leave, and you let him?" 

"Of course not!" Thor snaps, then swallows hard like he's trying to force his anger back down his throat. "He said that right after he found out he'd been adopted. Found it out by accident, that was his problem. He was searching through our father's documents when he found the files about himself, the adoption process, his birth mother's name, everything. When he asked our parents, they told him the whole story—father did, I mean, mother couldn't speak. He promised he'd have told him sooner or later but Loki didn't believe him. He said they didn't deserve his trust anymore. And that he would leave. But he only left years later, he was twelve so I must have been something like fifteen. He sneaked out of his bedroom at night, through his window. It was on the second floor of our house—it's a large house, he could have broken his arm or leg or whatever if he'd fallen, but there was no blood on the wall or on the ground, just his footprints." 

"Did you go after him?" 

"The moment we noticed he was gone. We never found him. We didn't know his birth father's name so we tried to contact his birth mother, but she was dead. She died the exact same day we called her, only hours earlier. She jumped out of a window. Father accused Loki of pushing her but the police had proof it was suicide." Thor shivers when he pauses to take a breath. "Fucking hell, I was so angry at my father. That's the main reason he didn't even call for my birthday." 

He hesitates for a second, then lifts the bottle to his mouth again, beer drips from the corners of his mouth and leaves wet little beads on his stubble. 

"Go on," Loki murmurs. "Was your mother angry?" 

"No, I don't think so. She was the one who knew my brother best, after all. When I saw that she agreed with my father—very silently, it was hard to notice, but I could see she agreed—that was when I apologized to him." Thor clears his throat, tries to drink again, realizes that the bottle is empty. "But I never apologized to my brother," he says. "I should have. Not because of me, but because of him." 

"You think he wanted you to apologize?" 

"Of course he did. He blamed my foolish loyalty towards my father for not telling him that we weren't born brothers—" and Thor's voice grows harsh and bitter just before he snaps, "I was less than ten, for fuck's sake! Of course I knew I hadn't seen my mother pregnant; of course it seemed obvious that he was my brother anyway, so I never thought of saying anything about it." 

A smile creeps over Loki's lips and he lets it stay there; it's a peaceful smile, a knowing one. 

"So he stabbed you when he found out." 

"He did." But then Thor takes a deep breath, another one, because that's how he's been breathing for the past twenty minutes, and his expression changes entirely; it's somehow brighter now, curious, challenging. "Last time we talked, you said you wanted to see my scar." 

"I asked if you still had it," Loki corrects him, but Thor's hands are on his own shirt already, unbuttoning it with fast, hectic little twists of his fingers, pulling it away from his bare chest. 

"It's here," he says, pointing a finger at the left side of it, at something hidden under the blonde hair covering his skin. "Good thing he didn't know that a man's heart was slightly more to the middle. Could have killed me." 

Loki leans to the side, placing his bottle down on the ground; when he sits back up, Thor lowers his hand to lay it over his, directing his fingers to his chest, under the soft hair, until he finds the spot where the skin becomes harder and thicker and runs his nails over the raw edges of a badly healed scar. Thor hisses when he touches it even though it can't be pain that he feels, and Loki glances up at him with his eyes wide and his lips parted. 

"Do you think he wanted to?" he asks, keeping his tone light. 

"I think he's glad he'll have another chance to try." Thor lets go of his hand and reaches for his face instead, tracing his jawline with his fingertips. "Do you think we should go back?"  

Loki turns his head to touch Thor's fingers with his lips, teeth brushing against skin as he speaks. 

"It's long past time we did that." 

* 

The windows are open wide, the curtains drawn to the side, hovering lightly in the air, lifted by the ice cold breeze that fills the room. The buildings underneath seem to be melting into the grey asphalt of the streets and the streets into the night sky; what he sees from where he's standing is pure blackness, hardly disturbed by the dim light of the street lamps. It's like the entire city is asleep—asleep, or dead, or buried, covered in silence, frozen into darkness. He's the only one who's wide awake; he's kept awake by the cold breeze on his bare skin and by the strange feeling that's forming inside his guts—it's fresh, it's expectant, it's something like excitement—he's kept awake by the knowledge there's someone he's waiting for. 

He knows what he looks like, because the pose is artificial and carefully guarded. His palms are on the window sill, his arms tensing slightly, struggling to hold most of his weight; he's facing the window and turning his back towards the entrance, and he's not about to move when he gets company. He's let down his hair so now it's covering a small part of his back, the area between his shoulder blades where his first tattoo begins. It's a large piece, one that follows the curve of his spine from the back of his neck down to his hips, one that resembles a snake whose head is hidden under Loki's hair and whose tail ends where his tailbone does. To the right side of the snake, there's another one, a horse with a fiery mane and eight sturdy legs; to the left side of the snake, a wolf, not a cub like in the band logo he's been wearing on his clothes but a grown one with rough fur and pointed fangs; each figure in a strange position, their shape extended vertically, mimicking the posture of the snake. Their outlines are bold and black, and they're not colored at all; the only color that fills the streaks is the whiteness of Loki's skin, in the sharpest of contrasts with his hair and his jeans and the shadows contouring his bones. 

His face is not exactly white though, not this time, it's painted a cold, light shade of blue by the moonlight—the moon is nowhere to be seen but its light is right there, shining through the window, splashing color all over Loki's cheeks, turning them even paler in the process. The candle, the black one with the green flame is standing on the window sill, next to his right hand, just inches away; and it's not glowing anymore, he's blown it out, first thing when he came back to the room, and placed it close to himself anyway. 

To the left, next to his hand, just inches away, is the wintertime photograph of Jane Foster. 

The door opens only minutes later—Thor's gone to take a shower, but he seems to have taken it in a hurry. He closes the door silently and walks through the room, a new scent filling the cool air as he gets closer. It's warm and sour, it's more the scent of the soap than that of his skin, but when he stops and stands behind Loki, his chest almost touching the silhouette of the snake, it changes slightly, it becomes heavier, it becomes more familiar; it becomes harder not to turn around and look at him. 

He takes one last step, pressing his chest against Loki's back—his skin is bare, too, and then there's a soft thud on the floor when he lets go of the shirt he's been holding in his hand. He leans forward and reaches for Loki, folding his arms around his waist, placing his jaw on his shoulder. 

"Hi," he whispers, not in the forcedly charming way that Loki would have expected, but in a very thin voice that sounds almost like he's afraid. 

Loki, for one, is afraid. He puts his hands over Thor's, not saying a word, afraid that his voice would betray him too; afraid that it wouldn't. He runs his fingers over the backs of Thor's hands, then tightens his grip around them, and that's when he feels the muscles clench in Thor's arm, that's when the embrace gets tighter, suffocating in some way, even though Thor's touch is still light on his waist as he pulls him closer to himself. 

"You never showed me your tattoos," Thor goes on murmuring, and Loki lets out a chuckle; it's supposed to be soft and slightly regretful, and all it ends up being is weak. 

"No, I didn't," he answers, and Thor smiles into his shoulder. 

"It's a shame, I like them," he says. Then he turns his head, opening his mouth again, without words this time, and places a kiss into the crook of Loki's neck. 

Another one, then. It's light, as light as the previous one, and it's closer to his shoulder. Another again, and it's almost on his back. Another, letting him go with one hand and pushing his hair out of the way. Another. He kisses his way down Loki's spine, following the outlines of the snake; the kisses are cold and wet, and so is his stubble, it keeps brushing against Loki's skin. Then he's on his knees, hands on Loki's hips, spinning him around, pushing him against the window frame. His kisses are on Loki's stomach, on the white scar on his left hipbone, then his chest, his throat, and just before he gets to his lips, he pulls away, forehead resting against Loki's, gaze nowhere near his eyes. 

"Can I?" he breathes, and Loki can't help but grin at him, lifting a hand to slide it under Thor's hair, pressing his palm against the back of his neck. 

"What a gentleman," he says, his voice on the edge of laughter; and then Thor's kissing his mouth and he's gripping Thor's hair; and then his grin is gone for good. 

A smile does return to his lips, though, but that's later and that's a different kind of smile; that's only when Thor kneels in front of him again; that's a smile so pleased that he's glad nobody can see it. It seems like their limbs are everywhere, tangled into one another—Thor's hands are opening his flyers, his hands are on Thor's shoulders, Thor's hands are grabbing his thighs, his hands are grabbing Thor's hair—it's still cool and damp from the shower, the scalp underneath so warm it seems to be burning—Thor's kissing his crotch, only kissing for some reason, through his underwear, without his underwear, taking him into his mouth, Loki's fingernails are digging into his skin. Then Thor's glancing up at him and he's on his feet again, kissing his lips, his jaw, his cheeks; and it's messy now, his skin's wet with sweat and spit but his lips are dry, and Loki grins at him again, his grin less mocking than intended; and he's getting on his knees now, he's unzipping Thor's jeans, and, just when he thinks he's sucked him for long enough to make him lose his head, Thor reaches for his hand and grasps it—firmly, roughly, but intertwining their fingers in the process. Loki glances up at him, a loose strand of hair falling into his eyes and covering part of the sight, but he can see just enough. He can see that Thor's eyes are open, too, and that he's staring at him with an expression he never wanted to come across ever again. There's a warmth to it, not the kind of warmth he'd show someone he wants to keep fucking but the kind he'd show someone he wants to keep having around; and for a second, Loki feels his own eyes widen and his own lips fall open, and he pulls away to get up and kiss Thor again; and for a second, it's not about Thor's pleasure but his own and not about Thor's wide smile but his own, his own head that seems to have been spinning around ever since Thor placed that first kiss on the side of his neck. 

And, when that second passes, he snaps out of it. 

There's no change in his movements, in the way his nails are scraping Thor's skin or in the way his lips are kissing Thor's lips. Thor, at least, doesn't seem to have noticed one. His eyes are wide open when their lips part, and he's looking at Loki the same way as before, except his gaze is getting less focused now. 

"Bed?" he pants, and Loki nods, his breathing heavy, matching Thor's. 

"Bed," he says, and slides his hands between the two of them. He presses his palms against Thor's chest and begins to push him away, but Thor suddenly seems very insistent on staying close so so they remain, making out in the window, biting and scratching each other's skin in frustration, not moving to make things easier for themselves. 

It's Loki who manages to take the jeans off Thor, and it's him who manages to take his off, too. It's also him whose hand finds a way between them again, whose fingers wrap around their cocks and start stroking them together. It's him who pulls Thor down to the floor and kneels above him, it's him who guides Thor's fingers into opening him up. It's him who rides Thor until his eyes are hazy and his words unintelligible; but it's Thor who ends up pushing Jane's picture off the window sill and down to the street while his hands are fumbling around to find Loki's. 

* 

"You didn't pack your bags." 

Loki turns, one hand on the handrail and one foot in the air; his mouth opening without words to say, his eyes widening in surprise. He's standing on a platform of the train station, next to the open door of the train that arrived at five twenty and departs at five thirty, and he was just about to climb the stairs leading into the first car when he heard the noises. The noise of a motorbike braking abruptly, the noise of an engine powering down, the noise of heavy footsteps caused by someone pounding towards the end of the platform; then, Thor's voice. 

He's right about the bags, actually, even though one doesn't have to be very perceptive to notice that Loki doesn't have his backpack with him. He doesn't have anything with him but the clothes he's wearing. He doesn't mention that, though; he gets on the first step instead and turns around fully to face Thor. 

Thor looks like a mess. He looks like he feels like one, too. His hair is uncombed and his bootlaces untied, and the shirt he's wearing, the one from the night before, seems crumpled and somewhat ill-fitting, like he's buttoned it up incorrectly. And his hand, the one on the right, is covered in blood from fingertips to wrist. 

"You cut your hand," Loki says. Thor glances down at it and seems surprised for a second, like he's forgotten or never noticed. 

"That's right." 

He takes a step closer to Loki, and Loki takes one up the short stairway, into the train car. Thor stops immediately when he sees him move. There's silence, the kind that must feel awkward to Thor because he begins to scratch the back of his neck, with his injured hand first, then, after a pained grimace, with the other one; and he takes a breath to speak even though he doesn't seem like he has anything to tell Loki. 

"That was pretty smart," he ends up saying. Loki raises an eyebrow at him. 

"What?" 

"The thing with gluing the knife to the bottom of the box." 

"Box?" 

"Yeah, you know, the present you left in the window." Thor reaches into the pocket of his jeans, the position is strange and must be uncomfortable because the pocket is on the right side and he's using his left hand; but he manages to retrieve a small, gift-wrapped package anyway. 

He lifts his arm and extends it towards Loki, the package laying on his palm. It looks like someone has opened it and wrapped it again, and it looks like the opening wasn't done with very great care—there are pieces of tape on the black wrapping paper where it's been torn, and the emerald ribbon has been crumpled and fallen askew. 

"So you found it," Loki says. It's not a question but Thor answers it anyway, pushing his hand even closer to him. 

"I did. You should take it back now." 

Loki shakes his head, his black locks flying into the air and splashing into his face. 

"It's yours." 

"We both know it isn't." Thor takes another step towards him, quickly so Loki doesn't have the time to move, and he presses the box against his chest before letting it go. Loki catches it before it falls to the ground. 

"I meant it to be yours," he says, tucking the package under his jacket; and Thor snorts at him, shaking his head slowly, letting the shade of a smile settle over his lips. 

"You have a habit of taking away things that someone once meant to be mine." 

Loki glares at him. 

"If you want it back—" 

"I don't want any of it back." Thor raises his right arm as well, reaching for Loki with both hands now, one clean with skin like polished bronze, one dripping with scarlet red blood. "I want you to get off the train and listen to me for five minutes. I swear I'll let you leave with the next one." 

Loki takes one more step, reaching the top of the staircase. Thor has to lift his chin so he doesn't lose eye contact, and his eyes are pleading and his throat bared, and his broad shoulders suddenly fragile when looked at from above. 

"You can get your five minutes," Loki says. "I'm not getting off the train." 

Thor opens his mouth as if he's about to protest, but he must think better of it because all that he ends up doing is nodding silently. 

"I packed your bags," he begins. "I wasn't sure what you'd want to take but I tried to fit in most of your stuff. It's over there." He gestures towards Mjolnir and Loki glances at it over his shoulder—it's parked in front of the waiting room and has two backpacks hanging from its steering head. 

"One of those is yours." 

"Don't mind that one. You said you'd listen." 

Loki folds his arms over his chest, just as Thor finishes pointing at Mjolnir and extends his arm towards him again. The position he's in must be uncomfortable, even with his strength—he's reaching upwards, holding out both arms, and the muscles in his neck are already starting to look strained. Loki sighs, his tone somewhere between worried and irritated.

"Put your hands down, for fuck's sake," he says, and adds, when Thor ignores him, "I'm listening."

Thor puts his hands down.

"What I want to say is I've been thinking about what you're doing here. Why you came here, mostly. And I think I realized on my way here, and that's what I wanted to tell you. You know, I talked to Nat—"

"Of course you did."

"And at first, I really wanted to believe the story you told her. With you being in love with me since our childhood and craving another chance to meet me and all that." Loki flinches at his words but Thor doesn't seem to care. "But that doesn't explain why you're running away now that you got what you wanted."

"She threatened me," Loki interrupts. "Maybe I got scared."

"Yeah, well. I don't think that's very likely. All she could do is talk to the police about Laufey, and don't even try and tell me you got scared of the police because I really don't want to laugh at you."

"She could talk to you about Laufey."

"So what?" Thor shrugs when Loki raises his eyebrows at him. "We sort of discussed last night how you killed your birth mother, and I think I made it pretty clear I didn't give a shit."

Loki shakes his head slowly, his lips curling into an amused grin.

"You not giving a shit about someone's murder," he repeats. "Where did all the righteousness go now?"

"Told you that you have a habit of taking the things I'm supposed to have."

Something must change in Loki's expression, because Thor smiles at him now and there's a certain fondness to that smile; and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter, almost gentle.

"That was tacky, wasn't it?" he asks, and Loki can't help but smile back at him.

"Awfully tacky."

"Okay." Thor glances at the clock hanging above the entrance of the waiting room. "I guess I have two more minutes, so. My second idea was that you had all of this planned." His injured hand rises into the air to make a small, clumsy gesture between the two of them. "All of it. As some kind of revenge for whatever crime you think I committed against you when we were kids. And I almost believed this because it would explain everything. The way you stripped me of all the memories I treasured. The way you took away everything that reminded me of how happy I was with Jane, like the music and the docks and her picture. The way you replaced it all with fresh memories of you. It's like you were trying to trick me into falling for you, into letting you become the sole source of my happiness, and then you took it away so I would feel betrayed like you did back then. And the things you did in the past few hours—if it had been part of some grandiose plan, you could be very proud of your brains."

"Come on," Loki interrupts. "You know I can be proud of my brains."

"Yes, you can. Most of the time."

Loki glares at him, eyebrows raised and glance questioning, and Thor shrugs with a shadow of a smile.

"I don't believe that you did this," he says. "I mean, it worked out so perfectly that I almost did. When I woke up in the middle of the night to find that you were gone, that's when. And when I found what you left for me and cut myself. But honestly, I wasn't all that surprised that the present itself was outside the box."

"You opened it."

"So I could put your knife inside. I wanted to give it back to you in a proper way. And I knew I had the time because I knew you wouldn't leave until you've seen me come for you. And you know why I was so sure? Same reason as before. For not believing that you planned this, I mean. Because your scar wasn't the only thing I noticed last night. I looked into your eyes, too. And no matter how many lies you tell and how many people you deceive, your eyes can't fool me anymore."

Loki wets his lips with his tongue; they're trembling under the touch.

"Speaking of tackiness," he begins, his voice not nearly as strong as it should be; but it's then that the small green light above his head turns bright red, and, with a loud buzz, the door of the train begins to slide shut.

Thor moves faster than anyone could expect him to. He steps forward with his hands in the air and pushes himself into the closing gap, each of his palms pressing against a wing of the door.

The first thing that comes out of Loki's mouth is an inarticulate hiss, but Thor doesn't seem to have heard it. The muscles in his arms are clenching, and he bites down on his own teeth as the edges of the wings keep moving closer together, cutting into his skin, leaving an angry red stripe across his palms.

"I'm not finished," he groans through his teeth, his forehead wrinkling, blood rushing into his cheeks.

"Thor, you can't hold back the entire train."

"If I can't get you off it, I might have to." And then Thor's letting go with one hand and reaching towards Loki, grasping his shirt and pulling on it; and Loki rolls his eyes before he takes a leap towards Thor, through the narrowing gap and onto the platform, his body clashing into Thor's in the process. They're falling to the ground as the train departs, Thor moving to the side so Loki lands on top of him; and the train is not yet gone, it's still racing past them when he rolls themselves over and pins Loki to the platform.

"What the hell was that for?" Loki asks over the loud rumbling of the train. Thor looks down at him, his neck red and his forehead sweaty, his hair sticking to his skin, his expression so serious it's almost comical.

"I wasn't finished."

"You can go on as soon as I'm standing on my feet." Loki tries to push him away, but Thor doesn't seem to be willing to move.

"I won't risk you running away again," he says.

"I won't run away."

"You won't if I don't let you." Thor ignores the sharp glance Loki shots him and changes his position a bit so it doesn't feel as uncomfortable as before. He slides one leg between Loki's thighs and places another by his side, still pressing his chest against Loki's, still holding his wrists with both hands. "I haven't told you what I believe you came here for."

Loki shakes his head, even though the way his shoulders are pinned to the ground makes the movement small and troublesome.

"You do realize that you can't know that, right?"

"I do." It's how easily the answer comes to Thor that makes Loki stop fidgeting around.

"You do?"

"Yes. I can't possibly know it, and I'm fine with that, and that's what I wanted to tell you."

Thor pushes himself to his knees, letting Loki move freely; but he stays where he was, lying spread out on the ground, his lips parted in a way that makes his face look a lot less intelligent than it normally is.

"You've come here for this?" he asks, and Thor nods.

"I was hoping you'd see that you matter to me. And that your intentions don't. And there's a memory you forgot to take away, so I thought you might like a reminder."

Loki wrinkles his forehead, not even attempting to show a quick wit anymore.

"Of what?"

"Of that memory. When I took Jane to Iceland. You only took the picture, not the place, and I don't actually want you to take either but I really want you to be there." Thor leans forward again, lifting a hand to touch Loki's. "Come home with me, brother."

Loki flinches at his words and Thor's expression seems to darken immediately. Then the darkness is gone too and all that remains is confusion when Loki grins at him, and, with his fists holding onto Thor's crumpled shirt, sits up.

"What?" he asks, and Loki's grin turns into a burst of laughter.

"We're going to have to sort this out," he says, shaking his head in disbelief. "Maybe you could try to avoid being romantic and calling me your brother in the same sentence? It's getting problematic."

"Maybe," Thor nods, and his lips are smiling but his gaze is still too intense for him to be joking, "but I couldn't find a better way to show how much you mean to me."

Loki rolls his eyes at him, his hands coming up to cup Thor's face.

"You," he says, drawing him closer, "you still are disgustingly tacky."

Thor pulls away before he could kiss him, furrowing his eyebrows until a deep wrinkle forms between them.

"Does that mean you're coming?" he asks. "Because that's what I brought my backpack for. I'm not sure how long it's going to take Nat to find out that we're not in our room but I think she was serious about locking you up for murder."

"Fuck," is the first thing that comes out of Loki's mouth. "Let's get going, then." Then he doesn't do anything even remotely similar to getting up, he leans forward and pulls Thor into a kiss instead. It's soft now, it's almost chaste, it's the gentle caress of lips on lips; Loki's thumbs are stroking Thor's cheeks and Thor's arms are closing around his waist, and when Thor tries to pull away, Loki stops him with a sharp tug at his hair.

"One single question," he says before Thor could protest. "Now that you've given my knife back to me, aren't you worried I might stab you again?"

Thor snorts at him in the most loving way possible.

"Honestly, I'd be more worried if you didn't."

 

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment if you feel like it, they're always appreciated!
> 
> more Thorki [over here](http://stuckinthosefandoms.tumblr.com/)


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